Want to know how to start a blog in 2024?
Good decision,
That’s the best decision I ever made in my life to start a blog,
Here is the deal;
When it comes to starting a blog, most beginners have the same question: how to start a blog without any experience?
If you are also a beginner and thinking of starting your career in blogging or want to do it part-time to earn some money, this is the ultimate guide for starting a blog.
In this post, I will share my 7 years of experience in blogging that has helped me earn a 6 figure income from my blogs. But before that, let me be very clear from the start.
First, making a blog and starting a successful blog are two different things; a blog can be made in a few minutes. Take a domain and hosting, Download any theme and plugins, And do a few clicks, and your blog is ready.
That is what most people do and fail in their blogging journey. And I am not saying this as per the shoutmeloud 90% of new blogs lead to failure in 6 months.
To be honest, I was shocked while reading these stats. But on the other side, lots of questions began to pop into my mind, Like
- Why do newbie bloggers fail?
- What are the reasons for their failure?
- What are the mistakes they are making?
- Why are they not getting success with their blogs?
But the biggest question that came to mind was, “How can I help newbie bloggers make a successful blog?” When I decided to write this blog post.
I hope you value my time and learn the art of creating a successful blog that helps you to make money. Things that we will cover in this blog post are
- How to start a successful Blog?
- Perfect niche for creating a Blog.
- Ideal Goal to achieve success in blogging
- Backlink Creation Strategy for Your Blog.
The post includes various untapped things that will open your mind to becoming a professional blogger, but before jumping onto the step of creating a successful blog, you need to understand what a successful blog means and why a newbie blogger fails to make money from blogging.
What does a successful blog mean?
A successful blog is a blog that has started making money or getting some decent amount of traffic from search engines that can be monetized with some networks.
The root of every successful blog is content, but most newbies use chatGPT and AI tools to create the content; that’s the number one reason for their failures. If you don’t want to be one of them, ensure you understand that content is everything for the blog, and you need to put effort into writing instead of copy-pasting from any sources.
Why do bloggers fail to make money?
You have heard this: “Making mistakes is not bad but making the same mistake is a blunder.”As a curious guy, I am looking for the right reasons to understand why new bloggers fail to blog.
However, after doing lots of research and interviewing the industry leader, I learned these are some of the basic mistakes that most new bloggers make that lead to the path of failure.
Why do new bloggers fail to make money from blogging?
While doing the research, I learned there is no single reason for newbies to struggle to make successful blogs. Many reasons are stopping them, and if you don’t want to be one of them, avoid the mistakes below.
Wrong Mindset
Having the wrong mindset at the start causes the blog’s failure for most newbies, and they enter the field with the wrong mindset. The problem with their mindset is that they think the day they create the blog is when they start making money, but that’s not the case. You need to work hard for a month to see the results.
Choosing the wrong niche
It’s another mistake committed by lots of the newbies. They choose the niche in which they cannot write a single word, which makes them feel demotivated when things are not working. It’s better to choose the niche in which you have interest and knowledge, and most importantly, you can write an article without any hurdles.
Not analyzing the competition
If you don’t research the competition before starting the blog, the most chance that your blog will fail, and it’s the mistakes that couples of bloggers make when they begin their journey.
Looking for shortcuts
Nowadays, getting access to any tool is much easier than ever before, and many new bloggers think that they have some tools that they can use to do the work and make money, but unfortunately, they fail to make a single penny. So, to be a successful blogger, you should understand that long success lasts only if you follow the right path.
Working on more than one blog
You have heard this quote: “If you try to do everything, then you will end up doing nothing.’The same applies to your blogging work. If you try to be an expert in all the niches, you will become a generalist, and in the market, there is no value in the generalist, so it’s better for you to focus on one blog until you succeed.
Lack of Patience
Most of the newbies are impatient. They give up after working for a few months. First, you need to understand that earning the first income from your blog might take time, but once you earn it, it will be easier to make money from your blog.
Now you have the idea of things that you need to avoid while creating a successful blog, but still, many of you have the same question: “How to create a successful blog” “Don’t worry. We will explain everything in this post. Just stay tuned and read till the end.
Reasons for blog failure – Expert Views
Here are the expert’s views on the failure of the new bloggers Thanks for inviting me once again; well, there are quite a few obstacles that everyone, especially the newbies, faces, and that is what I am listing below.
The first and the biggest one is Patience and the wrong mindset. Many newbie bloggers enter this field thinking they will start earning money once they create a blog.
This mindset has always proven to cause failures; as a newbie, you should understand that blogging is no longer a small thing.
There are 1000s of blogs coming up daily, and with such advancements, the competition is also increasing rapidly. So, a newbie must first focus and build a passion for blogging before thinking of earning huge through it.
-Iftekar Ahmed
The second obstacle is the wrong niche selection.It can lead to time waste as writing on something that is not your interest can be a waste of time.
Apart from this, one should also ensure that the keywords and niches picked are well-researched and not blind-selected by just seeing some attractive numbers.The last thing I want to point out is Focus. A newbie must focus on only 1 or 2 blogs initially.
-Iftekar Ahmed
Tips for making your blog successful
In the blogging industry, there is hype that making a successful blog is a very tough task. But I don’t think so.
Now, you will ask why and after blogging for more than 10 years, I have seen a lot of ups and downs in my journey, and I have a few special tips that will make your blogging journey easier.
These tips are common; most people know about them, but only some follow them. Here I am pointing out all those tips
- Be focused on your work
- Don’t work on more than one blog
- Be far away from the distraction
- Don’t look for the shortcuts
- Try to be better at writing the content
How to start a successful blog for beginners?
We have shared the tips you need to implement to make your blog successful, but now, let’s jump into creating your first successful blog.
The first thing you need to understand to succeed in blogging is that choosing the right niche for your blog plays a vital role, and most people are bad at it.
Here is the checklist for choosing the right niche for your next blog.
Interest
When researching the niche, select the niche in which you have an interest, and choosing the niche without an interest may lead to failure.
Blogging is all about consistency, and if you choose a niche in which you don’t have an interest, you will get demotivated after a few months. So it’s suggested to choose the niche in which you are interested are you are passionate about
Knowledge
If you choose the niche based on your interest, getting the knowledge from the interest is not a big task. You will feel like you are enjoying it. But it would be best if you considered acquiring the knowledge of the topic before you begin your blogging journey.
Quality content
Once you know about your topic, check whether you can write about it because you must provide quality content to your readers.
Niche Ideas to Start a Blog
Finding the right niche is one of the important decisions of your blogging career but before we share the best niche to start let’s understand “niche”
So, what is a niche?
Niche is the specific topic on which you will create your blog and write the article, and niche is a small part of the large market.
It is always better to go with a specific niche than choosing a broad niche, as it increases the chances of your success.
For example: Health, Technology, etc.Specific: Weight loss, Computer Drivers. ( These can be considered as niche.)
Now you know what a niche is, but still, many people make common mistakes. Don’t worry; you are in my post. You will get to know the exact method I have used so far that helped me succeed.
So, while picking the niche, what do you need to consider? Most people check the wrong things while choosing the niche, Like
- How much will I earn?
- Will the blog rank or not?
- Niche is profitable or not
- The niche is Good or not?
- Overthink about the niches
If you are also checking the same things, you are going on the wrong path, and these thoughts also lead to failure.
Niche Selection – Things to Ask
- Should I be interested in this niche?
- Will I be able to write good content about the topic or not?
- Can I learn from this blog?
But it’s vital to understand having an interest in any topic is not enough; you must have some knowledge about the niche.
Let me explain to you with an example. Suppose – You are passionate about coffee, and you know about the types of coffees and different flavors of the coffee, so you also have the idea about making the coffee using another method.
So here you have 100% interest in coffee and know the method of brewing the coffee using a different machine. But still, coffee is a big market, and you can also niche down into it Like
- Coffee Makers
- Coffee beans
- Types of coffee include latte, cappuccino, and mocha
Since I have good knowledge and interest in coffee beans, the niche I will choose here to make you understand is the coffee beans.
Still, many people are confused about choosing the niche, so here I have a solution for you
- List down your areas of interest and the areas of your expertise
- List down the things that people have appreciated for you
If you list down these things, I can guarantee that it will become much easier for you to find the niche for your next blog.
Remember – Every person is an expert in something. You need to figure out the things in which you are an expert interested, and once you figure that out, go deep into it and understand the items in detail.
But if you are still confused, then I will suggest you go through the list of interests but make sure you select the niche based on the checklist that I have mentioned above.
- Interest
- Knowledge
- Quality of the content
As I have mentioned earlier, my niche is coffee beans, so now I will find the competitor sites of my niche.
List out the competitors
Once you have decided on your niche, you need to explore the niche to get more clarity about the competition knowing about the competitor and checking how their strategy works is always better and some of the things that you check are mentioned below.
- What are the keywords they are targeting?
- What type of content are they producing?
- How are they writing their content?
- How are they building the backlinks?
- How many backlinks have they made so far?
The more you learn about your competitor’s strategy, the more ideas you will have to grow your blog, and you will also get to know what kinds of strategies are working for them.
You can also do the same things your competitor does and provide more value with your content to get a higher ranking on Google.
Now, we will find the competitor of our niche, and if you don’t know how to find the competitor, you can follow the steps below.
So here I am going to find the competitor of my coffee niche, and I will use Google to find out the competitor of my niche.
Steps to find the competitor in your niche
Step 1 – Make a list of search phrases that you think users will search on Google So, some of the search phrases of my niche are
- Can coffee beans is fruit or vegetable?
- Can coffee bean are coffee beans fermented?
Step 2 – Check the search results on the google
To find out the competitor, first, we should have some questions or phrases about our niche, Like
- Can coffee beans is fruit or vegetable?
- Can coffee bean are coffee beans fermented?
The method that you can use to find the competitor sites is using google autosuggest.
Note: Here, I am assuming that you have figured out your niche, and if you choose the niche based on interest and knowledge, then it would be easy for you to come up with the relevant search phrases
Step 3 – Make a list of the competitors Once you find the competitors, make a list of them so that you can use these sites later to research the keyword and their strategy.
Here is the list of my competitors
- berrybeanscoffee.com
- coffeebeancorral.com
- smokinbeans.com
- killercoffeebeans.com
- beanground.com
- coffeebeancorral.com
- coffeebean.com
- beanpoet.com
- coffeegreenbeans.com
Keyword Research for your blog
Now you have the competitor list, it’s time to explore the more keywords of our niche that our competitor is targeting. So, we will perform simple and effective keyword research to find the right keyword for writing the blog post.
In this, we will take the competitor’s website to find the keyword that we will target; we can say it’s a competitive analysis for the keyword research.
For keyword research, the tool I use or suggest to any newbie is Semrush, and you can also use the same tool to find the keyword. Now, we will look into the steps to find the keyword of my niche, coffee, but before, you must have the keyword list.
Steps for doing the keyword research
- Step 1: Make the list of the competitors that we have discussed in the competitor analysis section (I have already shared mine:)
- Step 2: We will put each one of these domains on Semrush to check which keyword they are ranking their sites.
Steps to find the competitor keywords using Semrush
- Open Semrush.com. Then, you need to select domain overview.
- Put your competitor URL in the text box, and hit search and by default, the country will be where the site gets higher traffic.
- You can change country too for viewing insight in other countries.
Add image
- Now, scroll down, and you will get top organic keywords.
Note – Here, organic keywords mean the keyword that is a higher ranking in Google or other search engines.
Add the image
- Wow, you have some perfect keywords for your new blog content. Note all these keywords and their search volume in a sheet or notepad.
- Repeat these steps by entering other URLs.I have entered howtodrawanimals.net and got a few more amazing keywords to write content on
Add image
You can follow the same process to find the keywords in other niches, too, but in the starting, I will not suggest you care about the CPC of the keywords.
If you find any keyword in which you can write quality, content, then you may go with the keywords
Again, I repeat that you should start the blog on the topic you are interested in and have good knowledge.
Domain selection for starting a new blog
Quick Review: so far, we have discussed the Process of niche selection finding the competitor keyword research for your blog
Now we look into the process of domain selection for the new blog, but before you look into the domain, I will recommend you choose the brandable domain over the exact match domain (EMD) and partial match domains (PMD)
- Go to Namemesh.com.
- There will be an input box like this. Now you have to type 2 or 3 words in it.
- Let’s suppose I have typed: Animal Drawing. On namemesh, there are various columns. But I always head over to the SEO section for the brandable domain.
- So you can do the same to find the best domain for your niche. Now, you will have different options to choose a good domain.
- After selecting a part, you can register that domain through any domain registrar
How to set up a blog for beginners?
As we have discussed, you need first to choose your niche and domain and select the platform for blogging.
WordPress is the best platform to start a blog if you are new. There are many hosting providers in the market, but the hosting that I recommend for beginners is Hostinger, and pricing is reasonable to start if you are new to blogging.
Create SEO-Optimized Content
As I have mentioned above, blogging is all about content, and creating the content is the most critical activity you need to perform to grow your blog.
But creating the content is not enough. You need to create content that solves the problem of the user.
You need to communicate with your reader with your content and to do that, you need to understand your user’s problem before writing any content.
I have seen that most people confuse the quality of content with the article’s length, but in my experience, content length doesn’t matter. It would help to focus on creating content that fulfills the user intent and query.
Types of content
There are different types of content, but here I will mention the popular format that most pro bloggers use to get high-traffic
Here is our niche: coffee beans
“How to articles”
The first type of content is “how to,” and most of the how-to articles focus on solving the problem of the users. These articles are highly convertible if you provide your readers with the correct and valuable information.
Suppose someone searches “how coffee beans are roasted.” that means that the user is quite interested in knowing the processes and ways of roasting coffee.
If you provide the correct method and ways of roasting the coffee, then your audience will be impressed by your content, and chances are they will share your blog with others or become your email subscribers.
Some of the other topics of the different niches are
- How do I download the telegram on my desktop?
- How to increase the productivity at work
- How to brew the perfect coffee without milk
List article
These are some of the most popular types of articles, which are highly convertible; many brands create such kinds of articles.
This article includes the ranking of the top products or services in the listicle form. It’s one of the best ways to provide information to the readers and people like these kinds of posts, so you can add them to your list for creating the post.
Some examples of these posts are
- Top 5 places to visit in India
- Best SEO tools for beginners
- Best coffee bean for the latte coffee
Tutorial & in-depth article
The tutorial article includes a step-by-step and in-depth guide to performing the task and these are some of the best articles for the new blog.
Most of these are highly targeted articles, and it’s been good at converting visitors into customers and some of the examples are
- Coffee Bean Roasting Guide
- Candle making tutorial
- Drawing for the kids
When it comes to article writing, there are many types of articles, but these are some of the most effective types that I have shared.
Some bloggers use these types of articles to convert visitors to customers, and if you want to know more about these kinds of articles, you can check here.
How to Create the content for the blog
We have discussed different types of articles that you can write for your blog. Now, we will discuss the step-by-step process of writing the content.
I only share these methods with my team members, but I am sharing them with you to make the process easier so you will not face problems writing the article.
Understand your audience’s problem
The first step in writing a compelling article is understanding your audience’s problem. The better you know the problem, the more user articles you will write for your blog.
So, my niche is coffee beans, and most of my audience is looking for a roasting and brewing guide.
In the end, you must have a clear understanding of your audience. Then, you can create content that your audience will love.
Idea Generation
Idea Generation The second step of content creation is getting an idea about the topics for which you will write the content for your users.
But starting, you just need to follow your competitor to find the ideas for writing the content. In the initial stage, you can cover the top organic keyword of your competitor, but ensure that you also check your capacity to whether you can write quality content.
Research
Research Once you have collected the list of ideas for writing the blog post, it’s time to start doing deep research to provide valuable content. Here is my process of doing the research.
Search the particular keyword on Google Read the 5-6 articles on the same topic
Check what topics and questions they have covered
Some of the things that you can check by reading competitor articles are
- How have they structured the context?
- How have they used the keywords in the content?
- How many links have they added?
- What are the types of keywords they have included in the headline?
- Are they covering the people who also ask questions?
- How many images have they added to the content?
Define the structure of the blog
Creating the outline or structure of the article is very important as it will help you to make the process easier and if you read your competitor’s articles, you will learn about the article’s structure and outline.
Add the image
Write the article
Once you have finalized the outline of the article, you will be ready to write the article Some pointers to keep in mind
- Write a short and crisp sentence
- Use easy & understandable words
- Breakdown the content with images
- Add the example to explain things
These are some of the points that you need to keep in mind to make your content readable for the users
Backlinks strategy for new blog
As we have mentioned at the beginning of the blog, content is the backbone of the blog, but backlinks also play a vital role in achieving the blog’s success.
Creating the backlinks is one of the ranking factors of the blog; you will also need to work on building the backlinks, so now we will discuss the backlinks strategy.
There are many types of backlinks, but in this blog, we will discuss the backlinks built for my blog and help me rank my site.
There are two methods of creating natural ways
- Create the linkable content that people want to link
- Email outreach for acquiring the backlinks
Here is the link-building case study of how backlinks help you get a better ranking on Google If you want to create manual backlinks, then I will share the practical ways to build backlinks, and these are the exact strategies I follow for my blog.
The backlinks strategy that I follow are
- Competitor analysis
- Forum backlinks
Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis is one of the best methods of creating high-quality & relevant backlinks.
Here is the list of the competitors
- berrybeanscoffee.com
- coffeebeancorral.com
- smokinbeans.com
- killercoffeebeans.com
- beanground.com
- coffeebeancorral.com
- coffeebean.com
- beanpoet.com
- coffeegreenbeans.com
For competitor backlink analysis
I will use SEO Profiler.SEO Profiler is an SEO tool that provides backlink data for any website and below we have explained the steps to do the competition backlinks analysis.
- Go to SEO Profiler; here is the link.
- Now click on the login, Guest.
- Create a New account and verify your email address
- Now you are on the project overview page, or you can say Dashboard.
- Choose Link Profiler from the left sidebar and click on the backlink.
- You must enter your competitor’s URL in the URL box.
Suppose I put howtodrawanimals.net in the URL box and then hit enter. Now, scroll down to the result.
See the screenshot.1:
Click here for LIS-filtered results, which means a high score and good quality site first.
Anchor: The anchor text the competitor uses to get the backlink for that particular post/page.
Nofollow: For the Nofollow link, there will mention “Nofollow”; otherwise, all backlinks shown in the screenshot are Dofollow if there is nothing mentioned
Create a backlink here: Go to that page and make a backlink on that page if that is a comment or forum link. If that is a contextual link(Link from the post), you can contact the site owner to link to your article.If you cannot create backlinks on some sites, you can skip that site.
Repeat this competitor backlink analysis step with other competitor URLs.Forum Link Building
How to create the forum backlinks?
Forum backlinks are one of the best backlinks if your blog is new and they will give you an initial boost to rank your site some of you don’t know what does forum means so it’s better to understand what is forum
What is a forum?
A forum is where a specific audience group spends their time and shares information about similar topics. Forum backlinks are one of the relevant backlinks because most of the people there are from your niche.
If you answer their query or problems in the best possible way, they might convert to your site’s visitors. For the new blogs, these backlinks are life savers for your blog, and if your blog is entire, I recommend creating these backlinks to get an initial boost.
I get 100+ visits daily from only forums on one of my niche blogs and below I have shared the exact steps to create the forum backlinks
- Step 1: Go to DropMyLink
- Step 2: Login if you already have an account there; otherwise, you can sign up. It is free of cost
- Step 3 – After signing in, you will get this screen
- Step 4: You have a few options in the category: choose “Forum Backlinks” and in ootprint. You can choose any of them.
- Step 5: In the input box “Enter your Keyword or niche,” type the niche-relevant keyword or question.
- Step 6: I have entered “how to draw horse” and chosen PhpBB. You can change PhpBB to other footprints for more forum results.
- Step 7: After hitting search, I got the following result.All the results are forums which are hosted on PhpBB. You can get different forums, too, by changing footprints.
- Step 8: Now go to these sitesCreate AccountPost some perfect answers, and link back to your post.
Now you got to know about creating the forum backlinks but here are a few things that you need to consider while creating the forum backlinks.
- Always choose the latest date forum topic, which means the topic will be active recently, and you can get traffic from that forum.
- Many forums don’t allow direct links from threads, so you can get the link from the Forum profile signature.
- Find it in your forum profile. You can change your search terms, keywords, and questions to get more and more forum threads.
So these are a few things that you need to consider while building the forum backlinks so you will build the relevant backlinks that help in ranking your sites
For new bloggers who have recently started their blog, these are enough to grow your blog
Conclusion
Starting blogging is not a big deal but growing and making it successful is what really matters if you follow the steps and process that I have shared in the post I can guarantee that you will create a successful blog Thank me later.
But if you still have any questions or queries regarding any steps, please let me know in the comment section I am here to help you in the best possible way
